VIGILANTE NURSE SUIT NEEDLES STIMULUS ACT WITH CONTRIVED HEALTH CARE REFORM VENOM

Something about the State of New Hampshire sometimes attracts odd adherents to the “Live Free or Die” philosophy of which the state is proud.  In the recently filed case of Beatrice M. Heghmann v. Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Nancy-Ann Deparle, Director, White House Office of Health Reform, and Charlene Frizzera, Administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 09 CV 5880, filed by Ms. Heghmann’s husband Robert Heghmann in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York,  the Heghmann’s inartfully cobble together a number of perceived grievances emanating from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, colloquially known as the Stimulus Act or ARRA depriving Ms. Heghmann and “all others similarly situated” from constitutional protections of privacy and from medical privacy and security protections under the Health Insurance Portability and Security Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”). This complaint seems more designed to attract attention and notoriety to the Heghmanns than any serious challenge to the implementation of the provisions of ARRA.

The essential theme of the Heghmann complaint is that ARRA’s pursuit of the implementation of Electronic Medical Records by all health care providers is somehow intended to or will likely result in the destruction of personal medical privacy and compromise the privacy and security provisions of HIPAA. The form and content of the complaint seems amateurish and overwrought. The complaint, for example, frequently refers to fundamental rights of privacy and security protected by the United States Constitution, but never specifically identifies those rights in the Constitution. There is a citation in the complaint to HIPAA, but the reference is to the implementing regulations and not to the Act itself.

The complaint frequently chides ARRA for implementing the ideas and beliefs of Senator Tom Daschle in his book, Critical: What We Can Do about the Health-Care Crisis, Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press (2008). It is relatively rare to see a “book review” in a federal complaint. He notes that the deputy director to the defendant, Nancy-Ann Deparle, of the White House Office of Health Reform, Jeanne Lambrew is a co-author of Daschle’s book. It is kind of surprising that the Heghmanns didn’t sue Daschle as well.

The Heghmanns find evil intent lurking in ARRA provisions such as the statement that HIPAA provisions will be enforced “only to the extent that they are consistent with this subtitle.” They assert that new commissions or agencies such as the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (“CER”) are designed to slow medical availability of new medicines and medical technologies. That CER plans to divide the cost of treatment modalities by the number of years a person has left so as to favor younger patients over older patients such as those needing assistance for Osteoporosis.

While administration health care reform efforts do incorporate “evidenced based” medical analysis and protocols, and it is legitimate to debate the value, the need or the future impact of governmental analysis of treatment protocols and modalities, the imputation of Constitutional infringement from the Act itself seems paranoid and overblown.

The complaint is riddled with gross misstatement and overstatements. It identifies the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (“JCAHO”) as JCAH (It actually calls itself the “Joint Commission” now). It asserts falsely that “(v)irtually every healthy care provider in the nation is certified by the joint commission.” It argues unconvincingly that the Stimulus Act will “effectively terminate the joint commission.” It asserts that the effort to universalize Electronic Medical Records will eventually result in all personal medical records being mounted on “software designed by the White House Office of Health Reform and HHS.” The action sort of purports to be a class action, but has no class action provisions.

This kind of sloppy, puerile “vanity” litigation is an embarrassment to the legal profession.  The Heghmann’s also received a certain amount of internet publicity for several law suits filed by Mr. Heghmann related to the Heghmann’s personal bankruptcy. Perhaps any publicity is good publicity.  “Live Free or Die.”

Comments

[NH Nurse]

I am from NH. The old values of this state would dictate NOT using the legal system. We old timers are more or less anit-lawyer and think law suits are pretty petty in most cases. These people are not true NHites. My guess is they are transplants from more lawsuit happy states-we all know who those are.